Community bans

[Nexxt]

I haven't started a topic recently nor I have been very active over the last few months on the forum. But there is something which really bugs me, something which in fact does damage the whole community, they are called community bans. Recently I have found a couple of veteran players whom have been awarded with this unique punishment. Where we used to have simple bans, we now have bans spreading over other servers; as well from servers whom are relatively small.

For example, I find it extremely ridiculous that specific people of our relatively small servers can decide one member is just not accepted onto the whole community. Recently the news of a community ban from a member of the Stunt Administration team towards a regular of this community came towards me, mainly because they created a PARODY movie of a scene from a movie called Der Untergang; thousands of parodies have been made over the years on the internet, everyone knows this was NOT intended to harm anyone. And apart from that, since when would a member of the STUNT SERVER, who usually have an average of ... two players...? ... decide that a movie is too offensive towards the RPG server?! Community bans are just used for a simple 'Lol, I don't like you actually, now I community ban you'-purpose, which is pretty disgusting to see.

We have several people who have meant a lot for the community, the person I am talking about hosted several community related services on his own costs. I do not recall that person bringing in a BIG HARM towards the community - so what's a community ban for? Can we stop throwing these 'community bans' around? These were originally intended for extreme banevaders, hackers and people who harmed the server in more severe ways than creating a RS5-parody of Der Untergang.

Bring back the community ban to what it was originally meant for and take away the authority from people who can actually not deal with it properly. I'm sorry if I offended anyone, please do not community ban me.

[Phil]

Your view is more than welcomed when you are aware of facts and history.

[Nexxt]

Your facts and history is more than welcome in the public, to be honest. I think people deserve to know why a veteran community members has been 'community banned', because it's not something lightly you do. I'm not speaking for myself when I think there should be more visibility for community ban reasons, other than 'he disrespected owner, he bad man' for example.

[SugarD]

Please email your concerns to [email protected]. There is no need to create a controversial discussion about this over one incident.

[Nexxt]

That's the exact reason of this public topic. Over the months there have been several incidents regarding community bans and they always had to be handled 'behind closed doors'. I actually do think the community should have the ability to discuss this, in the end it's the community who plays here and we should have the ability to discuss things on a proper, friendly manner. Closing discussions or referring to contact people by mail is only hiding it from everyone else.

Remember that I am the community too, just like you and others hundreds of our friends. There should not just be one person deciding for others, same as one person should not decide this discussion should not be held. Unless RULES are broken of-course.

[Devin]

It's going to cause controversy by posting this; I will have a look into the matter of the recent community ban and review it once again.

[Teddy]

Community bans should be public knowledge, true and with a future bit of software coming to Argonath, they will be. However, the community shouldn't be responsible for suggesting/deciding them. It is rarely one person deciding it unless it is something obvious (e.g real security breaches, DDOSer, etc.).

Remember: It's a privilege to play here, not a right.